The present invention relates to a weighting agent for flavoring oils and drinks concentrates and drinks produced therewith. Among nonalcoholic drinks, in addition to fruit juices, and in particular cola drinks, fruit juice drinks and lemonades have an outstanding position in the final consumer market. Lemonades especially are very frequently produced as citrus drinks without fruit juice content, which is why these drinks are sometimes clear. However, generally consumers prefer a cloudy drink to a clear product, since consumers consider cloudy drinks to be more nutritious and more easily digestible. There is therefore an increased requirement for cloudy drinks.
Cloudy drinks containing citrus flavorants can comprise fruit juice or fruit juice concentrate, other flavoring components, sweeteners, acidulants and other constituents, for example colorings, cloud stabilizers, vitamins and other nutrients; also, in the case of carbonated products, carbon dioxide. In these drinks, the cloud is caused by cloud constituents from the juice.
Drinks having a citrus flavor usually comprise flavoring oils which can deliver a significant contribution to the aroma and flavor of the drinks. In these drinks a cloud can be achieved even without juice addition, by emulsifying the flavoring oils. This type of cloud is of interest, not least for carbonated drinks, since carbon dioxide is more evenly released after opening, but is also of interest for non-carbonated products such as fitness drinks or sports drinks, where cloud from the fruit juice is more difficult to stabilize than in simple fruit juice drinks.
In practice, however, it is not possible to produce storage-stable drinks solely by emulsifying the flavoring oils, since the flavoring oils and the water phase of the drinks differ significantly in density. Owing to the lower specific gravity, the flavoring oils, even when very finely distributed, have a tendency to cream and settle out on the surface of the liquid, which can even lead to the formation of a ring-shaped deposit in the bottleneck, the oil ring. Such deposits not only make the drink unsightly, but can even lead to flavor changes in the drink.
To avoid such deposits, the emulsions must be stabilized. For this are used, firstly, water-soluble stabilizers, for example modified starches or gum arabic and sometimes additionally oil-in-water emulsifiers. Secondly, what are termed weighting agents are used. These weighting agents are not water-soluble, but oil-soluble, and must be miscible to the greatest possible extent with the flavoring oils. They have the task of setting the oil droplets to the same specific gravity as the water phase of the drinks. This prevents a creaming of the less dense oil droplets in the aqueous phase of the drink and a stable consumer product is thus achieved over a longer shelf life.
Weighting agents, in addition to the greatest possible miscibility with the flavouring oils, must have a significantly higher density than the aqueous phase of the drinks, so that the required emulsion-stabilizing effect can occur at all. The density of the flavoring oils is customarily in the range of less than 0.9 g/ml, while the aqueous phase of soft drinks can have values of over 1.04 g/ml.
In addition, weighting agents must be colorless, odorless and tasteless, be compatible with the constituents of the flavoring oils and be storage-stable under the conditions of the drinks, that is usually at a markedly acidic pH and in the light. Only a very small number of substances very largely comply with these preconditions and, in addition, are also suitable from the health aspect for use as weighting agents in drinks. These include dammar resin and glycerol esters of root resins. The brominated edible oils which are particularly highly suitable industrially as weighting agents owing to their high density are not very favorably rated from health aspects and are only permitted for use in foods in a few countries. A weighting agent which can be prepared synthetically and is thus readily and widely available is sucrose acetate isobutyrate (SAIB), sucrose esterified with acetic acid and isobutyric acid approximately in the ratio of 2:6. SAIB, compared with the other products, has the advantage that it is colorless, tasteless, is not subject to any changes, for example fatty acid oxidation or other oxidation reactions or other interfering reactions, and is permitted for use in foods in numerous countries (see EASTMAN SAIB-SG for beverage applications, Publication ZM-90C, July 1995 and EASTMAN Chemical Company, Vol.2 No. 4, November 1994 xe2x80x98Food for Thoughtxe2x80x99).
However, the use in practice of SAIB in the pure form is difficult, since, at room temperature, it has a very high viscosity of approximately 20 000 Paxc2x7s. Thus it is highly viscose at room temperature and, as such, can no longer be metered as a liquid. At higher temperatures the viscosity falls dramatically. If SAIB is heated to temperatures significantly above 60xc2x0 C. during processing, a pumpable and meterable liquid is obtained. Such a heating, however, requires some time, so that the product is not overheated, suffering unwanted changes. Heating of this type may only be incorporated with difficulty into the customary processing sequences during drinks productions and is thus uneconomical.
To eliminate the difficulties in use, attempts have been made to lower the viscosity of the SAIB by mixing with other substances. The substances used for this are in particular ethanol (for example Eastman SAIB-ET10) and citrus oils (for example Eastman SAIB-CO) (see EASTMAN SAIB-SG for beverage applications, Publication ZM-90C, July 1995).
Addition of approximately 10% by volume of ethanol (for example Eastman SAIB-ET10) leads to a reduction in viscosity to approximately 1000 mPaxc2x7s. However, the use of ethanol is disadvantageous. Ethanol adversely affects the emulsion stability in the finished drink. It lowers the surface tension of the aqueous phase and, when gum arabic is used, can lead to denaturation of this stabilizer. In addition, ethanol must not be present in drinks in many countries of the near east and in particularly the arab countries. However, the per capita consumption of alcohol-free drinks is very high precisely in these countries. Therefore, a drink based on an SAIB-ethanol solution neither displays the optimum emulsion stability, nor can it be produced and sold in a large number of countries.
As an alternative, a formulation based on terpene oils (for example Eastman SAIB-CO) is used. In this case terpene oils having a prominent citrus flavor are used. The intense aroma contribution of these terpene oils to the aroma of the finished drink, however, is not wanted in practice. The susceptibility of the terpene oils to oxidation and the difficulty of standardizing the aroma value of the terpene oils in the SAIB formulations make the use of these SAIB formulations in practice difficult, although they can be metered as a liquid. In addition there is the fact that these formulations are not usable for products having other than the citrus aromas.
Although SAIB and the above described SAIB formulations based on terpene oil and alcohol are used in practice, the abovementioned disadvantages of the components used in these formulations, in particular the possible disadvantageous consequences for the quality and marketability of the finished drinks, stand in the way of widespread use of SAIB. The object was to provide an SAIB formulation of simple meterability without the described disadvantages.
SAIB is imiscible with glycerol and 1,2-propanediol, the customary solvents for formulating food ingredients. It has now surprisingly been found that it is very readily miscible with compounds which are liquid (that is to say having a viscosity of xe2x89xa61000 Paxc2x7s) at room temperature (=25xc2x0 C.) of the formula (I) 
where R1, R2 and R3 are selected as desired from the group consisting of odd-numbered C1-C17-alkyl or C3-C17-alkenyl or C5-C17-alkadienyl,
R4 is H or OH and
Y is xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94C(O)xe2x80x94 or xe2x80x94C(O)xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94
but that, surprisingly, the viscosity of mixtures is also so greatly reduced, even at low contents of these substances, that a product which is readily flowing and thus meterable as a liquid, results.